The Washington Capitals certainly did that on Thursday night taking three ill advised penalties in the third period to gift the Columbus Blue Jackets two power play goals. CBus would need both of those tallies to force overtime and from there Artemi Panarin went around Dmitry Orlov, who was playing on his off side, and roofed one past a crouching Philipp Grubauer (23 saves) to give Columbus a 4-3 victory 6:02 into overtime.

This was a bad opening game loss by the Caps, there are no two ways about it. They came out strong and took a 2-0 lead on Evgeny Kuznetsov’s two power play tallies, which they received due to a dirty and stupid hit from behind by Josh Anderson. The play ended Michal Kempny’s night when his head hit the glass forcefully causing #6 to bleed and then have to deal with concussion-like symptoms. It is a play that the league has been trying to get out of the game for 30 plus years, but there are still players who don’t back off on a hit when they can clearly see their opponents number. I’m also shocked at some of the out of town comments on Twitter from those who allegedly know the game. That hit was awful, just like Drew Doughty’s on William Carrier on Wednesday night in Vegas, there is no defending it. I’m sure the league will look into the play and with Kempny’s status up in the air for game two and beyond, Anderson could face more supplementary discipline.

Washington dominated that first period to generate the two puck lead and things seemed to be going their way with 2:23 of power play time left to start period two. The Caps, however, could not get anything going again with the man advantage and the Blue Jackets grabbed momentum. A weird and fortunate bounce for the visitors in the neutral zone then led to a two on one rush for Alex Wennberg and Boone Jenner. Niskanen was back, but it was Jenner’s pass that just eluded a hard charging Orlov and gave Wennberg a back door tap in 4:48 into period two. Suddenly Columbus had life and the Capitals struggled, but they eventually stabilized things to take a 2-1 lead into period three. Washington had a 25-16 edge in shots on goal after 40 minutes, but Columbus’ goalie held his team in the game.

Tom Wilson, Kuznetsov, and Andre Burakovsky all took terrible penalties in the final frame to help Washington fritter away a game they should’ve won. Willy was correctly boxed for charging, Kuznetsov was whistled for a retaliatory slashing infraction on Panarin, who escaped justice, and then the most egregious penalty of all came with 5:05 remaining in regulation. Burakovsky mistakenly chased Columbus all star defensemen Seth Jones behind his own net and tripped #3 nearly 200 feet from the opposing cage as he came out the other side. It was a stupid penalty to take with a one goal lead late in a playoff game. Columbus had also scored on Wilson’s penalty to tie the game up at two, just 1:31 into period three. In between the power play goals, Jakub Vrana made a great end to end rush to set up Devante Smith-Pelly for a beautiful far post tally that looked to be the game winner until Burakovsky made a low hockey IQ play that ultimately sent the tilt to the extra session.

This was a very weird game and Washington was not helped by having to go with just five defensemen once Kempny was rammed into the boards. Orlov (26:09), John Carlson (26:16), and Niskanen (25:02) played a lot of minutes and the whole defense looked exhausted in the extra session. The Caps had zero shots on net in that six plus minutes of hockey. Overall, there were several Capitals that didn’t play well and looked sluggish. You can put Alex Ovechkin (seven shot attempts in 23:25) and T.J. Oshie (two shot attempts in 19:41) in that category. The Gr8 did not have his legs in this one and his hands were off, as well. If Washington is going to come back and win this series, then they need a lot more from their captain.

In goal, Grubauer made some good saves, but Sergei Bobrovsky (27 saves) was better since he faced more quality chances. It is hard to fault #31 on the first three goals, perhaps he could’ve had his stick down on the second goal to stop the pass from Pierre Luc-Dubios to Thomas Vanek, but Brooks Orpik was badly boxed out in front after Niskanen was caught up way too high on the penalty kill to lead to a two on one down low. Grubauer’s biggest save came right before Vrana set up DSP for the third goal when #13 made a terrible defensive zone giveaway. On the game winner, it looked like Philipp went down too early in a crouch and that was how Panarin sealed the deal for Columbus.

In addition to the penalties, there were too many turnovers by Washington. In period three they tried numerous cross ice passes in the neutral zone when pucks should be going deep. The Caps also didn’t put enough traffic on Bob in this affair. That needs to change in game two. Speaking of changes, Braden Holtby is 14-4-2 with a .914 save percentage in 21 games against the Blue Jackets so I’d like to see him get the game two start on Sunday night at 7:30. Grubauer wasn’t the main reason the Capitals lost on Thursday night, but again, he has to make that save on Panarin.

In summary, this game started great for Washington and then went downhill. The Caps made too many mistakes and once again found a way to lose a playoff game on home ice. That’s four of the last five home playoff games that they’ve dropped. If this team doesn’t play smarter, harder, and faster on Sunday night, this series could be over fast. The Blue Jackets work hard and Bobrovsky surely gained quite a bit of confidence in the victory.

Notes: The Caps are 10-7 all time when they lose game one…the Caps have lost home ice advantage. They failed to capitalize on the matchup advantage, but surely Kempny’s injury impacted that. Coach Barry Trotz stated afterwards that Christian Djoos would be the next man up on D if Michal can’t play…there is no practice on Friday…the Blue Jackets won the face-off battle, 33-27, but Nicklas Backstrom was 14-10…the Capitals were two for six on the power play in 11:00 of man advantage time while the Blue Jackets went two for four in 4:52 of power play time…Columbus had never led a playoff series until Thursday night’s victory…Jones led the Blue Jackets in ice time with 30:59. Cam Atkinson led all Columbus forwards with 25:10.